Throwsin

FromTo

Introduction

My favorite glass cannon, the throwing knife assassin is an old build that used to be more popular and have many guides. Generally, a throwsin uses throwing knives to kill enemies from a far with massive damage. Recently, people have seem to have lost interest and the old guides that once helped me learn this build are now outdated and have lost formatting. The goal of this guide is to help beginners understand how to setup a basic throwsin. The throwsin is fun and can complete a lot of ubers without expensive end game equipment!

Table of Contents

Final Stats

Final Skills

I don't want to tell you specifically how many points to put in each skill. I rather you look at the purpose each skill serves and then come to your own conclusion! Remember to experiment! You can reset your skills/stats by combining an oil of absolution and rune, in the horadric cube.Storm Crows - This is our primary attacking skill. Hard skill points give us range and add to the number of knives thrown.Wychwind - This skill is very useful for bosses and ubers. It weakens us when we use it but it can be used to spam massive damage in a single area.Blink - This is a timered teleport skill. It also stuns enemies on arrival and has a spell timer. The stun makes it more valuable then other teleport skills.Way of the Spider - This is a passive poison damage skill. The more points, the more poison damage!Queen of Blades - This skill, when active, launches blades at nearby enemies. It is very useful.Way of the Phoenix - This is a passive fire damage skill. The more points, the more fire damage!Perfect Being - This skill adds a chance to avoid damage. I believe this only works while standing still.Reward Skills:Beacon - Beacon isn't a bad choice when farming and running around. It does massive damage in random spots. How lucky are you?Way of the Gryphon - This is a passive lightning damage skill, and my uber skill of choice. The more points, the more damage!Vampiric Icon - This skill is especially useful, as it heals us depending on how many monsters are nearby. One point is usually all that is necessary to gain full health, when cast into a crowd.

Leveling

Most people find that leveling with a TU Naginata is easiest. I don't want to default to most old assassin guides where they just tell people to default to that. You can use a TU Naginata in combination with skills like Barrier Strike, Twin Strike, and Crucify with the same gear as below and be just fine until around the end of Terror. However, this is not a melee assassin guide, this is a throwsin guide. A throwsin is very viable early game and late game. There are some 'hot spots' for getting started in Median.

Tristram - You can run Tristram over and over again until you find some of the early game Uniques or reach level 17-18.Cathedral - Provides a good gap for in between Tistram and Sewers.Act 2 Sewers - Not to be confused with Unformed Land, this is where we can get to the high twenties. In the process be sure to kill Radament. If you have trouble farming here, make sure you have max resistances!MephistoThis is where you can farm all the arcane crystals needed to make the uniques that didn't come in Gift Boxes.Diablo - Good for XP.Baal - Also good for XP.

Level Challenge 0: Be careful not reach level 6! I usually use Batstrike to kill totems and then Scorpion Blade to kill Volrath. Continue to run LC0 until you have a reanimate you like an 8+ attributes. Later on if you REALLY want a maxed charm you can find a lower level player and run it for him, or have a friend spawn Volrath. Usually an average charm versus a maxed out charm doesn't make a big difference.Level Challenge 1: First, start by getting a Bloodmage Act 3 mercenary. Using the Storm Crows skill, we can usually hit the Amazons before they hit us. If you are having trouble, consider switching to the APF-10 Maelstrom throwing skill and clearing hallways before entering them.Level Challenge 2: Spend some time throwing Wychwind knives around the walls of the map until you find an area that leaves a lot of blue flames on the ground. Once you find the perfect spot, just spam Wychwind and when your mana runs out use Book of Summoning to spawn Tal Rasha. As soon as he spawns be sure to Blink out of the blast radius and then take out any stragglers with Storm Crows. If you find yourself dead to quickly be sure to max your resistances and life.Ennead Challenge: By now you should have some practice with how Storm Crows targets monsters and also how to maneuver out of the way of enemy missiles. The concept with Ennead is the same as LC2. Hit the totems with Wychwind a few times and then Blink away to safety. When the minions chase you just melt them with Storm Crows. Repeat this process until you have reached the Necromancers. Just Wychwind the Necromancers and dodge miasma/missiles until he dies. Alternatively, you can kill him with Storm Crows.

Early Game Gear

For early game, we are trying to obtain the following:

Damage, defense - The usual.

-Enemy poison/fire resistances - Adds to ways damage!

Overall speed - Attack, recover, and manouver faster.

Life after each kill, life on striking, or % life stolen - We don't want to rely on potions.

Resistances, resistances, resistances! - Most of the time people struggle in Hatred its because of this!

+Skills

Try to obtain Death Touch and Jitans Kamon from the Gift Box in Tristram. Early on it helps to use the Secret Jewel Bonus recipe as well. To make money for honorifics and other crafting, socket any rune in a throwing weapon and sell it! Keep in mind there are some runewords that help the bridge between early and mid game. Reference the runeword page in the docs if you are struggling in a specific area.

Pollice VersoGauntlets (6)Defense: (48-54) to (90-102)Required Strength: 66Required Level: 104% Chance to cast level 3 Time Strike when Attacked+(24 to 40)% Enhanced Defense+(3 to 5) to Strength+(6 to 10) Life after each Kill+(11 to 25) Mana after each KillSocketed (1)Defense: (109-122) to (184-205)Required Strength: 96Required Level: 186% Chance to cast level 4 Time Strike when Attacked+(41 to 57)% Enhanced Defense+(6 to 8) to Strength+(11 to 15) Life after each Kill+(26 to 40) Mana after each KillSocketed (2)Defense: (216-239) to (333-369)Required Strength: 139Required Level: 278% Chance to cast level 5 Time Strike when Attacked+(58 to 75)% Enhanced Defense+(9 to 11) to Strength+(16 to 20) Life after each Kill+(41 to 55) Mana after each KillSocketed (2)Defense: (376-412) to (554-608)Required Strength: 201Required Level: 3610% Chance to cast level 6 Time Strike when Attacked+(75 to 92)% Enhanced Defense+(12 to 14) to Strength+(21 to 25) Life after each Kill+(56 to 70) Mana after each KillSocketed (3)Defense: (583-635) to (854-930)Required Strength: 292Required Level: 4412% Chance to cast level 7 Time Strike when Attacked+(92 to 109)% Enhanced Defense+(15 to 17) to Strength+(26 to 30) Life after each Kill+(71 to 85) Mana after each KillSocketed (3)Defense: (875-946) to (1274-1378)Required Strength: 423Required Level: 5214% Chance to cast level 8 Time Strike when Attacked+(109 to 126)% Enhanced Defense+(18 to 20) to Strength+(31 to 35) Life after each Kill+(86 to 100) Mana after each KillSocketed (4)

The reason I think TU Gauntlets are the best choice for early game is because of the lack of mana and health early on. While were a low level we still have to worry about running out of mana and the 'life after each kill' doesn't hurt either. If you feel that you want to trade stability in for damage, or that you have enough mana- try the below options!

LionpawChain Boots (6)Defense: (49-54) to (71-78)Required Strength: 44Required Level: 4+(18 to 29)% Enhanced Defense+(7 to 10) to all Attributes+(31 to 50) to Life+(31 to 50) to ManaTotal Character Defense Plus (3 to 5)%(21 to 38)% extra gold from monstersSocketed (1)Defense: (110-119) to (152-163)Required Strength: 64Required Level: 13+(30 to 40)% Enhanced Defense+(11 to 14) to all Attributes+(51 to 70) to Life+(51 to 70) to ManaTotal Character Defense Plus (6 to 8)%(38 to 55)% extra gold from monstersSocketed (2)Defense: (203-218) to (267-288)Required Strength: 93Required Level: 22+(41 to 52)% Enhanced Defense+(15 to 18) to all Attributes+(71 to 90) to Life+(71 to 90) to ManaTotal Character Defense Plus (9 to 11)%(56 to 73)% extra gold from monstersSocketed (2)Defense: (334-358) to (433-464)Required Strength: 134Required Level: 31+(52 to 63)% Enhanced Defense+(19 to 22) to all Attributes+(91 to 110) to Life+(91 to 110) to ManaTotal Character Defense Plus (12 to 14)%(73 to 90)% extra gold from monstersSocketed (3)Defense: (519-554) to (667-712)Required Strength: 195Required Level: 39+(64 to 75)% Enhanced Defense+(23 to 26) to all Attributes+(111 to 130) to Life+(111 to 130) to ManaTotal Character Defense Plus (15 to 17)%(91 to 108)% extra gold from monstersSocketed (3)Defense: (759-807) to (974-1036)Required Strength: 282Required Level: 48+(75 to 86)% Enhanced Defense+(27 to 30) to all Attributes+(131 to 150) to Life+(131 to 150) to ManaTotal Character Defense Plus (18 to 20)%(108 to 125)% extra gold from monstersSocketed (4)

You can also use a rare amulet with the specs listed at the top of this section.

Rings:

Empyrean BandRing Required Level: 401% Chance to cast level 7 Singularity when you Kill an Enemy(3 to 5)% Bonus to All AttributesIncrease Maximum Life and Mana 10%(26 to 50)% extra gold from monsters

Sockets/Jewels/Orbs:Fill sockets with Ral or Sol runes. Be sure to upgrade items with lucky recipe. As far as orbs go, you have to assess what your character is missing yourself. Are you attacking slow? Are you doing enough damage? Do monster skills kill you quickly? Orb accordingly, and use the item features outlines above! With amulets and rings however, it is a safe bet to orb them with thunder hammer.

Midgame

Everything changes for us in midgame. If we want to keep up with the popular builds were going to have to set some goals.

Abandoned CraftOnce upon a time, I saw stoya solo kabraxis with a throwsin using only crafted and rare items!

Ideally, if you used abandoned shrines with low-strength requirement armor and got the modifiers listed above, it could actually be one of the best possible options. This option is also cheap, however, it is time consuming too!

For our socket fillers we really want to get max block, first thing! Io runes and perfect amethysts should go in all sockets. As you get extra dexterity you can slowly trade the runes/pgems in for crafted jewels that give us spell damage or -enemy resistances or speed. We can use perfect rainbow stones in our knife to top off our crushing blow!

DajjalThrowing Knives'Lem'Runeword Level: 433% Chance to cast level 8 Blast Wave when you Kill an Enemy40% Increased Attack Speed40% Faster Hit Recovery+(87 to 114)% Enhanced damage+(0.375 per level) to Maximum Damage (Based on Character Level)+(3 to 5) Life on Striking+10% to Experience Gained

,) can be used in conjunction with the double mo bonus to create some very promising mid game weapons. Crafted weapons with a good on striking proc work great too.

We also want an on-switch weapon that we can use for buffs. I prefer a crafted claw-type weapon with +bloodlust. Buff with bloodlust and then strike with shadow refuge. This helps in tougher areas and is worth making.

Amulet:Time to grind for that rare amulet with some of these modifiers doom/banish, skills, spell damage, lightning arena, and speed!

Rings:Try to obtain two 5% attribute Empyrean Bands with lucky upgrade, it actually doesn't take that long if your lucky!

Challenges

Before you start: Now is the time to use a +summon monster or 'lolsummon' mystic orb!

Black Road Challenge:While we don't use the black road challenge skill, we do need any extra bit of life we can get our hands on! The locations are all in Terror.

Trial of Fear: Click hereTrial of Greed: Sell throwing weapons with a rune socketed inside. I was able to complete this with 4 runes and 4 extra throwing knives.Trial of Contrition: Click hereTrial of Knowledge: For this challenge, proceed to Fauztinville. It helps to have a very tanky mercenary here, as this is a difficult area for us at the start of mid game. We can clear the map and complete the challenge using our storm crows but we have to hit the enemies before they hit us. So move very slowly through the level and launch storm crows at enemies before they get on screen. Find all the five brains and then cube them with the class charm. Refer to the map below for locations.Trial of Blood: This one is intimidating but for us its not that big of a deal. With okay block and our high avoid, this place isn't to bad. Start with lightning boss and then move on to ice. You will have to use blink to teleport into the room as soon as you get close. Always take the most direct route and clear the route before killing any boss. It takes a couple tries but is very doable.Minigames:Minigame 1: Witch Queen: Move the witches out of the way with a summon and then kill the countess. Watch out for deathstrike!Minigame 1: Crowned: Go to any witch outside and use a summon next to it. If a star appears then get just close enough to get swirls.Minigame 1: Mirror Mirror: Just keep a Lem rune with you when you go to defeat Baal. When the swirls appear, cube the rune with your class charm.

Veteran Tokens:Veteran monsters can be found at the end of each act. Cube a token from each act with your class charm. Take note that when the monster becomes transparent, it gets high avoid. You may want to wait until the monster is fully visible and then attack it.

Stat Signets:To obtain 500 stat signets, which is needed to obtain max block comfortably, run Nihilithak on Destruction. I also run Diablo and Mephisto in the process.

Uberquests

To make the Uberquests a bit easier, you may want to put some extra points in blink to get that timer down really low!

Dungeons:Death Projector: Lure the mechanics to a corner, and blink away. Use wychwind on the seige tower a few times then just avoid the beams. When the double beams come out use your blink to get away safely. Repeat until the tower falls.

Creature of Flame: Wychwind the creature and dodge his missiles, its that simple!

Infernal Machine: Clear a path to the bottom left area of the level as soon as possible. That is where the tower is. The longer you stay in the level the more monsters he summons so use wychwind as soon as possible. Watch out for deathstrikes.

Rathma Square: Spam storm crows while blinking on top of targets to stun them. Sometimes it is easier just to blink near Primus instead of fighting your way through.

Azmodan: Teleport on top of him, use wychwind or storm crows. As you start to take damage blink to a safe area (generally the sides of the map.) Repeat until he dies.

Cathedral of Vanity: I usually lead the nuns into the first room, and then blink to tower. Hit the tower with wychwind before you die, as many times as you can. As you re-enter, blink into the main room and repeat until the tower is gone. It usually takes a couple of deaths. After the tower is gone, just spam storm crows to everything else in the room. When you have killed everything in the room be sure to kill Inarius by using the summoning uber concepts below.

Summoning:The Butcher: Use your summon from earlier to lure him around the map until he walks into the red star- then attack with storm crows. Wychwind won't work as easily here because it takes to long to become active.

The Binding of Baal: Find an area in the map where your wychwind will work. Spam wychwind and then summon. Blink away and move back in using storm crows.

Assault on Mount Arreat: Find an area in the map where your wychwind will work. Spam wychwind and then summon. Blink away and move back in using storm crows.

Akarat: Go to the room with a dungeon entrance. Spam wychwind in the corner of the room and summon him. If he is still alive but his minions aren't then blink away to the other dungeon entrance room.

Legacy of Blood: Spam the room with wychwind, summon. If you start taking to much damage enter a lower level, heal, and then come back up.

Lord Aldric Jitan: Use the same concept as above, but be sure to summon him in the dungeon entrance room.

Uberlevels:K3KBA: Wychwind the totems, and drag minions away from buff. Move in using storm crows. Wychwind the necromancers and try to blink out of miasma.Island of the Sunless Sea: You can start with whichever boss you want. I use storm crows for both of them because neither have very much health. Lure invulnerable monsters away from Lucion like you did in K3KBA. Try to blink away from Lucion when he gets close and dodge Malic's homing bolts. You can use summons to remove the homing bolts if there are to many to dodge.

Khalimgrad: Kill etherals and then tower. Use blink to move between rooms quickly.

Tran Athulua: This is an easy one for us. Use storm crows every few steps until the knives begin to target enemies, then stand still and keep launching storm crows. When they no longer target monsters, repeat. We can essentially clear the map without having to battle it out with a single amazon.

Fauztinville: Try to use the Tran Athulua concept but keep in mind you will have to backtrack with blink quite a few times unless your kill speed is very high.

Heroics:For Heroics, the general concept will be the same. Clear level, summon, and then use wychwind while dodging their attacks. (Easier said than done, I know!)

Bull Prince Rodeo: Use the corners of walls to block the herds of cows!

Quov Tsin: Stack massive amounts of resistances, as he has tons of elemental pierce!

Belial: Stay on the move! Attack, run, repeat!

Tips For Your Mercenaries

Equip an act one mercenary with this bow:

ShockwaveBows'Sol'Runeword Level: 27100% Chance to cast level 16 Punisher when you Kill an Enemy+(58 to 72)% Enhanced damage+(11 to 15) to Maximum Damage+3% to Poison Spell Damage(6 to 8)% Chance of Crushing BlowSlows Target By (11 to 15)%+(21 to 40) to Dexterity+(21 to 40) to Energy

For other mercenaries, crafted items can be a very cheap and godly gear option. Bloodmages with +spell damage and -enemy resistances works great. Act 5 barbarians with Balefire and other crafting procs works great too.

O Skills

If you want to have fun and experiment with o skills (skills that we get from items!) and you don't want to change your gear around to much, the below skills are worth checking out!

ATMGATMG (auto tracking machine gun) is a very powerful oskill that can appear on crafted assassin-only shields. It works like a trap and has a striking-rate similar to tantrum, however this can be cast anywhere on the screen.

TantrumTantrum is no longer a secret and has become one of the most mainstream builds. Tantrum sins are far less common than they used to be, but are still viable. Tantrum appears on crafted bows and a guide put out by stoya, while outdated, can provide some good information.http://www.medianxl.com/t411-v6d-tantrumsin-wip

Multimedia

Pictures coming soon!

Credits

Laz, Marco for modQuinarius for docsCommunity that created other guidesqndel for help in-gameServer hosts

People that helped make it better:shnurr214FumblesRobinro

I will be updating this a lot in the next few days. Please post suggestions below!

excellent. i really wanted to try a throwsin actually at some point but was unsure how to play it. only thing a noobie like me would request is that you provide some gear choices if finding the set proves difficult. maybe what to prioritize on crafts and some level 100 rws or greatrune runewords or ele stone runewords that are viable for this build. im not sure all the stats that are relevant for throwsin so this would help immensly as sometimes i find myself unable to get a specific su or set piece for a while.

why is everything in spoilers, it does not look very good that way. If u used spoilers to keep the length of the thread short so that people dont have to scroll too much to reach a later part of the thread, u can always use the navlink bbcode and make a index at the starting of the thread. To learn how to use it, check the Useful BBcode link in my signature and if u wanna see an example of how it works, then u can check the Bestiary thread's index which is again in my signature.

why do you go for +spell dmg? this stat doesnt do anything for this build when using stormcrows or am i missing sth?docs says: "% spell damage also works with passive elemental damage sources, but only on direct melee hits."

robinro wrote:why do you go for +spell dmg? this stat doesnt do anything for this build when using stormcrows or am i missing sth?docs says: "% spell damage also works with passive elemental damage sources, but only on direct melee hits."

You are completely right, and I fail at life apparently. Thanks for pointing this out. I will make some changes.

I switched the bb code but I believe it functions better the way it was. I also updated some of the item section and have plans to make a larger, more in depth, mid game section with a separate section for end game.